3
POPSBirds and bees acting up with climate change
Due to space, I have only included a few examples, but there are more details of changes throughout the world on the page. It seems ironic that we can be prepared to cast blame, while ignoring the problem. Nature will not be ignored. I remember an old Japanese saying "Do not look for blame. Look for solution." Then of course there was King Canute. Despite his authority over people the tide continued to rise. The worst thing we can do is give up. We can't argue with the elements, much less change them. We have to change our behavior. Reminds me of dieting. It is not a short term thing. For dieting to be successful, it has to be a permanent change in eating habits. Very soon, with the correct diet, the improvement in health can make us wonder why we ever ate incorrectly in the first place. Also similar to things like stopping smoking, or drinking Alcohol. They only seem hard until you become determined to stop. Then it's not long before the benefits become clear.
7
POPSTranshumanism vs. Trans-Systemism What exactly is this “human” that we are supposed to extrapolate into the future? Is it an individual animal? A member of a species? A self-aware “software” that resides in the fore brain of an advanced mammal? Several combined pieces of software? Software combined with external knowledge and information? Does it depend on nature? Can it be distinguished form the system in which it resides? Can it exist without the broader system? ******** Perhaps the most critical challenge of transhumanist philosophy is exactly this: To offer a vision of the future human, the human of beyond. Transhumanism will not grow into a mature philosophy without defining and describing the possible favorable directions of human evolution, both as individuals and as a specie.
4
POPSWho Is Really Responsible For the High Prices You Pay for Gasoline? When will the American people stand up and say enough!? Why weren't we insistent *before* we arrived at this point? So typical of human nature...let's just wait till things are really bad and then we *have* to do something. FTA: "It's wake-up time for America. Maybe we should investigate the blame-throwing investigators in Congress." And a more "blame-throwing" Congress I have never seen.
9
POPS1 Giant Leap A beautiful project :-) Video clips from all episodes of the program can be found on the web site.
1
POPSDuality of Man & Our Responsibility to Our Species The careful task of becomming unbiased allows the course of balancing the self to run smoothly & unfettered. Those whom endeavor to seek only the positive (or negative, for that matter) will find disappointment in the face of objective truth. Pain is not an enemy to be evaded or eradicated. Suffering will come regardless of efforts to avoid it. Rather than to circumvent suffering, detaching the ego to step outside the self allows one to surpass it & learn from their mistakes, lest they foolishly relive them. Remember that the universe is impersonal, & will continue to unfold as it will with or without you. Only then can the subject detach from the moment holding them back (stasis) & develop into a more appropriate, thus more comfortable state. This is nature’s objective. Rising above the situation awakens our ability to create our own reality.
2
POPSCongress Considers Cellulose Ethanol In the Cato-at-Liberty blog post "Wishful Thinking on Cellulosic Ethanol," Indur Goklany, author of the Cato book The Improving State of the World, writes: "If cellulosic ethanol proves to be as profitable as its backers hope, farmers will divert even more land and water to producing the cellulose instead of food. All this means we'll be more or less back to where we were. Food will once again be competing with fuel. And land and water will be diverted from the rest of nature to meet the human demand for fuel.
9
POPSThey have made fools of themselves The federal government has been doling out more than $5 billion annually for research into climate change and alternative energy. A generation ago, there were only a handful of climatologists around the world. Now there are legions of taxpayer-funded climatologists, and scientists and public health professionals from many disciplines also hooked up to the climate gravy train. How many outspoken politicians and celebrities will be willing to acknowledge that they have made fools of themselves? I suppose that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Madonna and others could at least jet on back to their hypocritical Green lifestyles with a clear conscience of sorts.
20
POPSHow a color can impact exam performance Quoted from the page: "Tests have shows that when subjects are exposed to bright red, blood pressure increases and the heartbeat speeds up. (Exposure to green causes a drop in blood pressure; the same is true of dark blue.) . . . This is largely explainable in perfectly ordinary terms.Green soothes us because it is the color of nature. . . "
8
POPSSmoke over Buenos Aires "Buenos Aires residents are hoping for a change in the wind direction to bring back the "good airs" which gave their city its name."
1
POPSTree of Life If man would look at life in this simple way, there would be no wars, no strife, but love for all life. Cougar
6
POPSMyths of Mental Illness: chemicals or people? Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation by Charles Barber Excellent interview with author, difficult to do justice in clip. Part of the growing critique of the myth that mental distress is solely a matter of chemical imbalance, 'hardwiring', genetics etc. Relocates the human in culture and ideology rather than identifying a biological misfunctioning atom.